Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Watchlist: Kill The Bad Guy

Title: Kill The Bad Guy
Developer: Exkee
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
2014
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Join a secret and mysterious society whose members have sworn to get rid of war criminals, former mafia members, and other criminals, going incognito among us. Hiding behind the appearance of a simple ‘man in the street’, the Bad Guys feel untouchable. They don’t expect you to track them and make evil plans. “Kill The Bad Guy” will stress and test your mental skills through a puzzle game where physics plays an important role.
I've been following Kill The Bad Guy's progress on Twitter for a while now and I was lucky enough to get a press demo to try an early version of the game. At its core, Kill The Bad Guy is a puzzle game about killing; I've been describing it as "Hitman: Final Destination edition" and I think that phrase sums up the games's mechanics quite nicely. In each level, a target roams the level and it's up to you to manipulate and sabotage the environment to execute him. Like the Hitman games, each level is a big puzzle of interlocking parts, and you can alter them to set up the perfect kill. And like the Final Destination series, those kills are wonderfully over-the-top Rude Goldberg scenarios of failing machinery and traps.
Executing those kills are easier said than done, revolving around timing and even some stealth mechanics. Viewed from an isometric perspective, you can set items in locations to disrupt behaviors and patterns in the level, maybe stopping traffic with a roadblock so you can alter your target's path past a leg-chopping air conditioning fan. You need to act fast and time when to sabotage items and place objects as not to tip off your target. But in the end, it's satisfying to see your plan come together in a spray of blood and flailing corpse. The stark white minimalist environments offers a stylish contrast to the red blood.
Kill The Bad Guy is still in development, with a Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight page planned for mid-February. You can learn more about the game on its official site and on Twitter.

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